The present disclosure relates generally to the field of radar systems. More particularly, the disclosure relates to aircraft weather radar systems.
More than 3,000 aircraft equipped with automatic airborne radars are flying worldwide at any given time. Automated radars provide the pilot with a hands-free operating system that detects precipitation at a range of about 320 nautical miles ahead of the aircraft. Automatic radars have the capability to be programmed to scan specific areas of the atmosphere. They can be used to automatically scan areas where there are known gaps in the US and Global Radar detection network. In addition, they can be used in a net-centric manner to scan areas of the atmosphere that have the potential for severe weather. Scanning these areas may improve the radar scan updates for severe storms and potentially improve forecasting of the severe weather as well as shorten the forecast cycle. Improving forecasting of severe weather and shortening the forecast cycle may benefit aviation as well as ground based operations. Current and planned future aircraft densities may provide a dense network of airborne weather radar observation nodes to scan the NEXRAD ground radar coverage gaps in the continental US, other regions, or the world over.
Radars are conventionally used to transmit pulses and receive returns of weather ahead of the aircraft and display that information to the aircrew. The radar detects precipitation, turbulence, and wind velocity information. It also has access to other atmospheric information such as outside air temperature, winds at altitude, INS G loads (in-situ turbulence), barometric pressure, humidity, etc. That information cannot be detected over the ocean or in lesser developed countries. Therefore, detecting that information would be very valuable to industries, such as aviation, that require accurate weather information for planning and decision making It is recognized by the meteorological community that providing airborne weather sensor information to ground would provide significant improvement to weather observations and forecasts. However, before it can be properly utilized, the information must be transferred from the aircraft collecting the data to other aircraft or to ground stations.
Conventional airborne datalink communications use VHF and satellite communications (SATCOM) to transmit information between aircraft and the ground and aircraft to aircraft. There is a cost associated with installing datalink equipment on the aircraft to share data. but many aircraft are already equipped with such systems (e.g., for communication, in-flight entertainment, etc.). The primary obstacle to sharing data is the expensive costs associated with transmitting data via VHF or satellite communications. Another obstacle is the available data channel capacity or bandwidth.
There is a need for a more cost-effective system and method for communicating weather radar data between aircraft and ground radar stations. There is also a need for increasing accuracy of weather information available to ground stations and aircraft. There is further a need for improved systems and methods for communicating weather radar data between aircraft. There is further a need for improving communication with aircraft without installing additional communication hardware.